How wooden doors are made

A wooden panel door has a loose center panel that floats in a groove, so it can swell and shrink without splitting the frame.

stations: 6
things upstream: 37
raw sources: 11
steps from the ground: 9

The short version

A panel door is a frame of upright stiles and cross rails around one or more flat or raised panels. Boards are planed to size, cut with matching profiles on a shaper, drilled and doweled, then glued and clamped around panels that sit loose in grooves. The finished door is planed to fit, sanded and finished.

Plane the boards

Lumber is jointed and planed to exact thickness and width. The pieces for the frame are the vertical stiles and the horizontal rails.

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Lumber
Glue up the panels

Narrow boards are glued edge to edge into wide panels. Panels may instead be made from plywood or MDF, which move far less than solid wood.

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Adhesive Plywood
Shape the profiles

A shaper cuts a decorative edge along the inner side of each stile and rail. The end of each rail gets the reverse cut, so it fits over the stile like a puzzle piece.
Drill and dowel

Holes are drilled in the ends of the rails and the edges of the stiles, and wooden dowels reinforce the joints.
Clamp the door together

Glue goes on the joints, the panel drops in, and the whole frame is squeezed in a clamp. The panel is left unglued and a little smaller than its opening.

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Adhesive
Plane, sand and finish

The edges are planed so the door fits its opening. It is then sanded, finished and inspected before it leaves.

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Lacquer

End of the lineWooden door

Worth repeating

A wide solid wood panel can change width by half an inch with the seasons, which is why the panel floats loose in a groove.
A basic panel door is called a five-piece door: four frame members and one panel.
Cope-and-stick joints are the most common frame joint, while mortise and tenon is the strongest, used on large doors.